‘Ghostbusters World’ Tips: How to Capture Ghosts Like a Pro

Ghostbusters World brings the exciting, glamorous work of being a paranormal exterminator into your phone — and your life. This augmented-reality title lets you battle and capture a bookload of dangerous and familiar ghosts in your own world. It also has a Story Mode that lets you take a squad of captured spirits into an alternate dimension to battle on your behalf.

So you have plenty to do, but it might be nice to have some pointers to get going. Here’s how to start your ghostbusting career off right.

Take control

By default, Ghostbusters World has its AR settings on and uses your phone’s rear camera to place your foes in your living room, backyard, or wherever else you end up playing (no judgment if it’s the bathroom; everyone does that at least once). But if you turn that setting off, you have another control option. Specifically, you can switch to a virtual pad for your battles instead of the default “Tilt” option.

This control scheme lets you move around by sliding your thumb anywhere on the screen. And best of all, you can move without interrupting your proton stream. So you can keep the beam where you want it.

The settings menu also lets you switch between right- and left-handed controls, set the music volume, and even deploy traps automatically. That last option is especially convenient since your character will automatically do that without you having to either let off of your capture stream.

Track them down

If you’re looking for a specific ghost to add to your collection, or you just want to see the ones in the area that you haven’t caught yet, Ghostbusters World has a screen for that. On the map screen, check out the Ghost Tracker to see and tag specters. Ones you haven’t caught yet show up in gray, so you won’t have to waste time running down doubles.

The Ghost Tracker also shows you how far away they are, which is good information to have if you don’t feel like doing a lot of walking.

Get elemental

Each ghost you fight and capture is associated with a particular element. The five types are fire, water, earth, light, and dark. And each of these is strong against one of the others and week against another. So light and dark ghosts are weak against each other, while fire beats earth, earth beats water, and water beats fire.

It’s not crucial to know which types different ghosts are when you’re capturing them — unless, of course, you’re looking for a particular element for your team. But it’s really important to pay attention to them when you’re sending your own squad against others in either the story mode or contests against other players. You’ll want to build your ghost team to handle anything the bad guys can throw at you.

If you’re having trouble remembering which beats which, Ghostbusters World has a convenient trick for you. The color of the arrow above an enemy spirit will tell you how their element compares to the one you’re attacking with. Green means you have the advantage, yellow means you’re the same, and red means you won’t do as much damage.

Know your grades

Along with elements, ghosts have plenty of other properties to track. They have levels, ranks, and super attacks, and some even have special abilities that activate if you make them the leader of your team. Each ghost you capture will also have a letter grade that shows its relative strength compared to other ghosts of the same kind.

The grades, in ascending order of power, are D, C, B, A, and S. So if you capture a D-rated Slimer, you might want to wait to level him up. You should keep grabbing Slimers until you get one with a higher rating (preferably an S). This will ensure that you’ll get the strongest unit possible once you do start putting resources into a particular ghost.

Letter grades will also help you decide which ghosts to keep in your lineup. You can hold 50 at a time, and when you start running out of space, the grades will give you some idea of which ones shouldn’t make the cut. Even better, destabilizing unwanted characters will give you resources to make your better ones even more powerful.

Be ready to counter

Ghosts aren’t going to just sit back and let you shoot them with protons until they’re weak enough to trap. They’re going to fight you back. And when they do that, you have a short window in which to counter them and avoid taking damage. The trigger appears just above your Blast button, and you have to hit it quickly. This will deal a powerful hit to your opponent and free you to keep chipping away at their health.

Spirits can break free even after you’ve trapped them. And the first thing they’ll do once they escape capture is launch an attack because they are super mad at you just then. So don’t relax until you see the trap spark and the red light turn on. If those things don’t happen, you have a punch or sliming coming your way, and you should be poised to hit that Counter button to protect yourself.

Evan is a high-powered supernerd who is sprinkled across the internet like salt. His contributions have appeared at Screen Rant, Cult of Mac, and GamesBeat. When he isn't writing, he plans projects he won't have time to make and cultivates an affinity for terrible horror films.

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